


All There Ever Is and All There Ever Was

by Echolight



Category: Team StarKid | StarKid Productions, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF!Emma Perkins, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emma Perkins-centric, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, POV Third Person Limited, Post-Canon Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-03-06 07:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18846121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echolight/pseuds/Echolight
Summary: In a tiny town where the veil of reality wears thin, anything can happen. All it takes is the right moment, a spark of determination, and a story that moves you to the core.She knows what the inevitable is. She begins to panic.She's going to die again, they're all going to die again, and Paul is going to smile and sing with that unbearably sweet expression on his face to her again.She's on the verge of breaking down.Then, a voice in her head whispers to her:you have the script. Her panic is short lived and replaced almost immediately by budding hope and infinite possibilities and the wondrous freedom of the unknown.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic will be following the fan theory that the title number of TGWDLM is a set in the future and that this entire musical is the Hive’s retelling of the actual events that occurred. 
> 
> I'll be adding a bunch of backstory and changing the preexisting backstory around a bit. If you think "hey wait a moment, that contradicts canon," it's probably on purpose. It's like the show TGWDLM is a universe within this AU.
> 
> Also, this is my first fic in addition to my first foray into creative writing ever so wish me luck!

Paul and the rest of the infected tower over her as she falls to the ground, her injured leg giving out on her as she leans back, trying to stay away. Their horrifying music number reaches its apotheosis.

His voice rings out by itself, a final solo for the costar of her horror-comedy life. "The apotheosis is upon us!" The rest of the infected join back in for the last note, creating a beautiful and terrifying harmony that she doesn't have time to fear before Paul rips into her.

* * *

This is what it’s like to be Emma.

You are sinking to the bottom of a vast, yawning ocean.

Your limbs are cold and heavy. There is no energy, no will remaining in you to move them. They are only dead weight, trailing uselessly above your torso as you sink.

Your lungs have long since burned and then filled with water, the pain of not receiving oxygen is only a distant afterthought, the water doing nothing to soothe the ache.

Your world is fading away. The amount of light disseminating through the murky water, combined with your failing vision, makes for a dark, dissolving world.

You can’t hear anything. It is quiet and muted around you, the water muffling every sound.

You can’t scream. You have long since run out of air and even if you could, no one would be around to hear it down here, in the depths of the ocean.

You have been here for what seems like an eternity. Time stretches out, and the mocking bubbles that rise around you take an entire age to float higher.

And finally, you give up. How can you possibly win against the eternal and all-encompassing force of nature that is water? It has torn deep gouges through the earth, slowly, but with frightening consistency, wearing away at the world. It will be here long after you are gone.

Water will always win.

* * *

There is no pain, only happiness. A blissful, all-encompassing, overpowering happiness. It’s cloyingly sweet, to the point of artificialness. This isn’t real happiness, but she doesn’t care. She’s found her roots again in The Hive, and The Hive wants to celebrate its conquering of Hatchetfield, and so she does too. They do so in the only way they know how: song and dance.

The show comes together instantly, their minds all in perfect harmony with one another. She is cast as Emma, a barista on the edge. Her co star is Paul, the guy who doesn’t like musicals. They are surrounded by a cast of supporting characters that all come together to tell the story of how Hatchetfield, a city on the brink of Armageddon, fell to the victorious Hive.

She sings about Emma in the third person, telling the members of the Hive playing the audience about Paul and the barista he pines after. They tell a funny and compelling story, of a world where a man who doesn’t like musicals is suddenly in one. They tell a tragic and heartbreaking story, of a terrible husband and a sweet wife, of an asshole who tries but fails to be better, of an insane professor worn down by years of isolation, of a father and daughter estranged by divorce. They tell a story of two people who almost made it, who almost could have been.

When the show is over and they’re all taking their final bows, her character, Emma, begs and screams. The Hive members playing the audience laugh and cheer and applaud, all playing their part. For Emma, this isn't funny. The show doesn’t end for Emma after the audience goes home and raves about the music and the acting and the story. For Emma, she is moments away from being killed at the end of the world. Then, the lights go down and Emma is gone again. Happiness courses through her from how well she played the role. It’s addictive.

Then, something twinges inside her, a spark of rage that is so familiar but also most definitely _not_ happiness. It burns her, this spark.

“Happiness is guaranteed,” she thinks, but sometimes Emma thinks happiness isn't what she needs.

Another wave of happinesses washes over her and with it all her thoughts disappear.

* * *

This is what it’s like to be part of the Hive.

You are part of something larger than yourself.

You don’t remember a time before the Hive and you can’t even begin to imagine a time afterwards.

You don’t even need to think, much less remember. Every thought in your head arrives in an instant, completely foreign and yet intrinsic and familiar.

Your feet are light and your body moves with a grace and coordination that is otherworldly.

Your voice sings all the words it does not know at a pitch that is scientifically exact.

The Hive is all there is and all there ever was.

* * *

The show runs for almost three weeks, as more and more new Hive members pour into the theater to see the story of how their victory on Earth began.

After each run, happiness courses through her veins. But it lessens ever so slightly each time. It's not enough anymore, and in the back of her mind, she remembers this sensation of _more not enough more_  as familiar. She is growing tired of being happy. Happiness without any other emotion to juxtapose against it becomes dull. After each run, the spark in her that screams _I don’t want to be in this musical_  grows brighter and the happiness that she feels from the show diminishes, until it’s not quite enough to extinguish that wayward, rebellious spark.

Then, the night of the final show arrives. The performance is perfect. The singing, the acting, the—oh my _God_ , she doesn’t _care_. Emma grasps desperately at the spark within her. She will light this fire inside her and burn this whole goddamn place down because the fire within her burns brighter than the water trying so hard to soothe and quench it. Then, she catches fire and she is engulfed. Emma has a moment of clarity, a single beat of rest, for the first time in a month. She remembers why this feeling of addiction is so achingly familiar.

It ends all too soon when the Hive, not to be outdone, washes over her with serene and simple joy. However, this time Emma doesn’t go back under. Emma fights against herself, struggling to maintain consciousness. She’s never been happy. Not really, truly happy. All along, it was the Hive feeding her manufactured happiness, creating a sweet but insubstantial melody line, and Emma has had enough.

Half of Emma wants to desperately to go back to the bliss she felt before, but the other half screams to be let out. The dissonant notes grows stronger and they crash along to the tempo of her heartbeat. It _tears_ at her insides, the fire. It burns so sharply and brightly and she has never felt pain like this before. Emma adds kindle to the flame with determination and latches onto the pain, using it to drive out the sickening happiness she feels.

The battle between what the Hive tells her and what Emma knows to be right crescendos, both sides giving their all in a final, show stopping number, trying desperately to remind her of why _they_ should be the one she wants.

The happiness plays a whimsical and fleeting piece with a violin canon, as if to remind her what she would be missing if she left. The parts of the canon meld perfectly into one another, until Emma can no longer tell where one part begins and ends. It’s mesmerizing. All she wants to do is close her eyes and sway to the music, playing this canon on fucking loop forever. She gets lost in it, the music giving her a sense of euphoria, It makes her feel invincible.

The pain plays a piece with pounding drums. The orchestra plays aggressive and abrupt chords, creating a jarring effect. The runs from the orchestra and thuds from the percussion create an effect that almost physically feels like it is striking her. It drives her out of her own skin as she listens. Every beat of the measure feels like a beat to her body.

Both pieces reach their apotheosis and the mix of conflicting emotions overwhelms her. Emma can’t take this anymore. She feels like a mirror. Neither side is pulling their punches and each hit sends more cracks and fractures down her. It’s only a matter of time before she shatters. One way or another, they have to stop because she won’t survive if they don’t. In her desperation, she relies on a feeling deep within herself, something instinctual. A muscle memory for something she’s never done before. She reaches out and pulls at _something_.

* * *

Emma comes back to life. Literally. She can feel her heart start to beat again and every cell in her body wakes up. Opening her eyes on her own power, she takes it all in: the stage lights that dramatically silhouette her and the rest of the cast of her infected friends, the natural spotlight of moonlight that shines down on her from the hole the meteor left in the ceiling of the theater, the thunderous applause for the end of a journey that culminates in the final show, the slight pant of her breath from exertion (how crazy and amazing is it that she can _breathe_ again?), and the tempo the pit is setting that runs in line with the beat of her newly restarted heart. All this and more tells her she is alive. And then there’s something else.

There’s a special sort of energy in the air tonight, one she’s felt before. She thinks back to all those years ago to the closing night of _Brigadoon_ , and the undercurrent of power she had felt running through her in the final moments. She hadn't understood what she was feeling back then, but she thinks she understands now. It had been echoes screaming out from the future and intertwining with her past, and that future was now. The fifteen year old theater lover in her recognizes that the show they had just put on was objectively pretty damn good, but she feels no pride in its quality or for her performance. In contrast, despite how awful her high school production of _Brigadoon_ had been, at the time she had been immensely proud of it. It may have been bad, but she had loved it both in spite of its flaws and for it. Two moments in her life so drastically different in context, but both with magic imbued within them.

Tonight, she feels that same power as fifteen years ago, but a thousand times stronger.

Hatchetfield is a special place. She’s always known this, from when she grew up to the constant feeling of otherness without ever even knowing normality, all the way to the night she left and never looked back. She has travelled all around the world, from back alleys in obscure rural towns, to atop towers of dizzying height, and she has never encountered a place quite like Hatchetfield. This town, a crossroads between nightmare and imagination, has a deep and ancient power rooted in the very ground it lays on. It is a place of awesome power and history, in the oldest sense of the word. And here, in the old Starlight Theater, she is in the nexus of it. The theater radiates with the magic of fifty years of drama and art and emotion and something _other_. That same magic turns into a thrum of power runs through her veins.

She wants so desperately to change what has happened here. They don’t deserve to have their tragic story replayed night after night in a torturous reminder of what happened and how they failed. She feels an overwhelming desperation, a need to change what happened here. None of this is right. She’s furious and hurting and desperate and desolate in a way she has never been before. This isn’t how her life should have went and fuck if she’s going to take it and lay down and die (again).

Here and now, on the night of the final show, basking in the glow of applause and trampled dreams, Emma _wishes_ with an ache for what could have, what should have been, like she has never wished before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [First song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCib0B8T24)   
>  [Second song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmk5frp6-3Q)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I highly recommend listening to at least the first one.
> 
> More characters/tags will be added to the tags if they ever become relevant. This first chapter was very metaphysical, but over the course of chapter 2 it should transition into real events and then be pretty grounded in reality for the rest of the fic. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Even just a "I liked it" or "this is terrible" would be great! Please. I'll even take a thumbs up emoji.
> 
> (PS: let me know of any typos/grammar issues you find. And other SK fic writers, join me in making the "Team StarKid | StarKid Productions" tag a parent tag for all SK fics because right now we're using the RPF tag incorrectly.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. Sorry for how long this took. I got very sidetracked by listening to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack and quickly falling into that fandom (Jared Kleinman is my new son, y'all). Don't worry though, not leaving you guys! Enjoy the chapter :)

In that moment after the wish, she sees her whole life laid out before her in a flash.

She’s six, and she shrugs angrily when her mother asks her why she isn’t friends with any of the other kids at school. She doesn’t want to be friends with stupid Michael who only talks about how he wants to be an astronaut or dumb Valerie who only wants to play soccer. They’re boring. She doesn’t fit in with the other kids at school and she doesn’t want to.

She’s nine, and she tries running away from home. Not for any particular reason, other than the fact that she is nine years old and dramatic. She walks for hours until her feet ache and when she looks up, she’s back home. It isn’t yet time for her to leave.

She’s eleven, and she’s rolling her eyes at Jane’s binder that plans for a perfect life and happy ending. Even at the precocious age of eleven, she’s already learned the lesson that life never goes the way one plans.

She’s fifteen, and it’s the final night of her show. She (thinks she) is fucking killing it in _Brigadoon_ and she feels brand new, throwing herself into someone that isn’t her. She buries her too real, too many sharp edges, chips in the porcelain, three-dimensional self under a fake, two-dimensional, fictional character and she’s born again.

She stands with the rest of her castmates during bows, hand in hand, soaking up the applause. She looks to the audience and for a split second, she catches the eye of another teenager who looks to be around the same age as her. He has a bored expression on his face, and he claps only out of politeness. Despite his lackluster response, their connection is electric and just a bit magical. There’s power in the air that night, but she’s doesn’t yet understand or know how to reach for it.

She’s seventeen, and she’s done listening to college recruiters try to tell her what she wants in life. There’s no way she’s sticking around here for another four years.

“Happiness is guaranteed,” one of the recruiters tell her, a tacky catchphrase for whatever shitty college they’re touting. She rolls her eyes at their well meaning but empty promises and thinks happiness isn't what she needs.

She’s eighteen, her high school diploma thrown haphazardly on her desk, a one way plane ticket to Europe in hand, her backpack slung over her shoulder, and her heart full of wanderlust. Next to the discarded diploma, there’s a short note scrawled in messy and rushed handwriting. Its only contents are a phone number and the words _for Jane_. She’s ready to leave Hatchetfield for good. She aches to get out and see the world. She was never meant to be rooted to one spot for so long. She’s spent the first eighteen years of her life trying to get out of this place and she never wants to go back.

That night, she swears she can see a fragile map in the sky made of brilliant celestial bodies and gaping black void that leads her through the cosmos. As she stares, mesmerized, into the sky, she sees a star streak by. In the trail of the star, she sees an outline of her life, still hazy and branching into the rest of the sky from all the future choices she will make that haven’t yet been set in stone. In the backdrop of void and stars, the entire agonizingly short but indescribably long span of her life is intertwined with every moment and person and thing she will ever meet and interact with throughout time and space.

She feels remarkably small, to see her own life within the span of the universe. In that moment, standing on the curb outside her house, she’s hit with a sense of déjà vu because she feels that same ancient power she did the final night of her show. She knows that _if_ she reaches out, she could shatter the fragile reflection of time with her own two hands and fill the cracks with her own script.

In that same sky, she can see that her time has not yet come. She knows then, deep down, she knows she’ll be coming back to Hatchetfield. What she saw mapped into the stars that night would be burned into her for years to come. Even in all the infinite paths it could take her to get there, she would always end up in the same place again. It was inevitable.

And then she blinks. The moment is gone. The stars are just that: stars. There’s a constellation she might recognize, but nothing else. Her cab pulls up to the curb. She gets in. She greets the driver. All thoughts of the greater universe around her and destiny are put out of her mind and she embarks on the journey of a lifetime.

The next decade of her life rushes by in a flurry. She’s twenty-one as she stows away on a cargo ship headed for Miami. She’s twenty-three, and she’s hitchhiked all the way to San Diego. She spends barely a month there before she’s already on the move again. She’s twenty-five after having spent two years in Mexico, doing odd jobs and making her way across the country. She’s twenty-six and she decides it’s time to settle, at least for a little while. She’s twenty-eight and she’s not exactly happy, but she’s content with her life in Guatemala, even if all the coatimundis keep getting in her shit.

Then, she gets a call and her world comes tumbling down around her.

* * *

Emma’s phone rings, and for a moment she doesn’t even recognize the sound. It’s been a few months since anyone has called it. As she walks over to her backpack where the phone is buried, she racks her brain, trying to remember what the conversation had been about the last time she used it. She finds it at the bottom of the bag, wedged between a spare change of clothes and a protein bar. She sees the familiar area code of Hatchetfield, but not Jane’s number. She almost ignores the call, but something tells her it might be important. She doesn’t know who else from Hatchetfield would want to talk to her after all these years.

She answers the call. “Hello?”

There’s only silence on the other end. “Hello? Is anyone there?” she asks into the phone.

“Is this Emma? Emma Perkins?” a voice asks back from the other end. She freezes. Though the shitty phone speaker distorts it, the voice is unmistakably her mother’s. She can’t imagine why her mom would be calling her. She hasn’t heard from her since she left Hatchetfield all those years ago. The only contact she has had with her family since then has been Jane.

“Yeah. Mom, is that you? Did something happen?“ she says, her stomach slowly beginning to sink. Whatever the reason for this call, it couldn’t be good.

“Oh, honey, it’s been so long. I don’t know how to say this, but it’s Jane… She…” Her mom trails off, clearly unwilling to say what happened.

“Mom? Tell me what happened,” Emma says carefully, as if any level of caution would change what was about to come.

“She was going to pick up Kayla and she—she just. I—I can’t. It’s just. I—and she.” On the other end, Emma can hear an abrupt choking noise, and then following it, loud sobs.

“Mom, tell me what fucking happened.” Emma says into the phone, her voice growing hysterical. She doesn’t want to assume the worst, but after all these years of radio silence, she fears that there can only be one reason why her mother would call. The sobbing on the other end only grows louder.

“Jane—Jane is _dead_ ,” she finally chokes out, needing Emma to understand.

_Jane is dead_. That simple, declarative sentence rang through her head, echoing around until it was the only thing running through her mind. She never thought that the last time she saw her sister would be the night she left Hatchetfield. A memory cuts through the panicked echoes of her thoughts.

She remembers the conversation she had the last time she used this phone. It was Jane inviting her back home for her second baby shower, telling her how good it would be to see her baby sister again after all these years, and that it would mean so much to her if she could make it. Her sister had went on and on about how Kayla was so excited to have a baby brother, how they had the room all ready for him, how she was still trying to decide between names and that she wanted her input ( _What do you think, Emma? Miles or Jake? Or do you think I should go with a more unique name?_ ).

In the end, Emma makes a non-committal noise when Jane asks her again if she would come back ( _I’ll try, but no guarantees_ , she says). She doesn’t want to let Jane down but she’s content with her life here in Guatemala and she definitely doesn’t want to go back to Hatchetfield.

The memory ends with Jane hanging up after a long heartfelt goodbye and even longer _wait, don’t hang up yets’._ Then, reality sets in. Jane is dead.

She slowly sinks to the floor, her legs weakening and almost giving out on her until she’s kneeling. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t scream or rage or do any of the things she thought she would. All she does is sit on the floor, in silence.

She’s hyper aware of the feeling of her lungs expanding and contracting. She can feel the very air she breathes scraping her windpipe like sandpaper. She can feel the cold concrete floor beneath her digging its abrasive surface into her, leaving angry red imprints on her knees. She can feel every beat of her heart registers in her fingertips and she can feel the quick tempoed pulse running throughout her body.

For what seems like an eternity but in reality only takes seconds, Emma sits there on the cold, unforgiving concrete, and it’s only after her mother hangs up, after she’s booked the first flight she can make back to Hatchetfield, after she packs her meager belongings strewn across her shabby apartment, that she breaks down and cry and mourn the loss of her only real family.

* * *

Emma stares at the closed casket. They said it would be better that she didn't see the body. They said she died instantly. They said she wouldn't have felt anything. They said it was okay to be feeling whatever she was feeling. They said a lot of things.

Filled with spite and anger for everyone and everything, she rips open the casket lid. She stares at Jane's face in person for the first time in over a decade. There lay her sister, slaughtered. They had done what they could to reconstruct her face after the accident, but the scene that lays before her is still gruesome and appalling. Still, she feels a sort of vindication, because she can most definitely handle this. She doesn’t need well-meaning strangers to tell her what’s what she should and shouldn’t be doing.

The funeral itself is huge. Emma takes a look around and sees the mass of people who have gathered to mourn the loss of Jane’s life. She knows no one here, save her parents. She sees strangers crying and holding each other. The atmosphere is so comforting and supportive, it makes her wants to retch.

She listens to the eulogy. It’s long and drawn out. Apparently, many people have many nice things to say about her sister. She listens. And then she listens some more. As she listens, it becomes clear to her that all these people were better off with Jane as the living sister. She’s just the fuck-up who dropped off the face of the Earth for a decade. At least she has the decency to show up for the funeral. Or maybe it’s the audacity. She isn’t sure which one is more accurate anymore.

After the funeral, an older woman approaches her, telling her how she worked with Jane at the local animal shelter for years, how she is _so_ sorry for her loss, how Jane was just the most _wonderful_ person ever, and how she’s sure that Emma is _just_ as lovely. Emma puts on a show and gives hollow smiles and empty platitudes, reassuring all the well-wishers that _yes, she is holding up just fine_ and _yes, this was just the most tragic thing_ , but on the inside, she angrily shrugs off kind words from the other attendees.

* * *

She lays on her bed in her childhood bedroom that she had shared with Jane. It’s still the same as she remembered. Buried far under the anger, under the longing and regret, she has to laugh at this situation. Here she is, still free to wander directionless from city to city, no tethers to keep her on this mortal coil, and there Jane is, cold body lying lifelessly with so much that she has left behind.

Now that the funeral is over, she is left with nothing but her thoughts. After a sobering moment, her laughter evaporates and all that’s left is the anger. Her earlier thoughts come crashing back and she's outraged at the unfairness of it all.

Why should she still be here when Jane is not? She wants to lash out and rage at everyone and everything. At the driver who so carelessly hit her sister and irrevocably changed so many lives. At her father, who sits in denial and will barely acknowledge anything has happened. At her mother, who is lists around the house uselessly. She wants to scream from the rooftops that her sister is _dead_ and the world is worse off for it. She can't do any of that, so she directs her fury inward. Spite and anger make a dangerous, reckless combination in her.

* * *

And now, she’s twenty-eight. Her sister has been dead for five months. She stares at the stupid Lisa Frank binder she had found buried in the back of the closet she used to share with Jane. One hand flipping through the pages, and the other on a bottle. She takes the plunge. Months wash away with the bitter, ugly taste of liquor in her mouth. It perfectly compliments the bitterness and ugliness she feels inside. It will be a long time before she is truly cognizant of the world surrounding her again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I'm not quite happy with how the dialogue portion of this chapter turned out, but after realizing how long it had been since the first chapter came out, I decided to post it. If anyone has some tips/resources for writing better dialogue, please send them my way!
> 
> And as a reminder, the style of this fic will probably be shifting once we get into the actual fix-it part of the story, but there will likely be interludes in this current style. 
> 
> Comment if you like this stuff! It motivates me to write more. Talk to me about anything. Mistakes you found. Lines you liked (or didn't). What you think inspired a certain section (trust me, there's a lot).
> 
> Oh and I guess shoot me a follow on my Starkid/musical theater tumblr [inevitableapotheosis](https://inevitableapotheosis.tumblr.com/) if you would like.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. It's been a hot sec since I updated. College has started again and so that's been a huge timesink. But since the last time I posted, I went to SK homecoming, so that was cool as shit.

Emma wakes up to a discordant note and nothing has ever sounded so beautiful. Her alarm clock is beeping its shitty sound and it was all a bad dream and there's no apocalypse and she's alive and _man_ , she should really stop having coffee past midnight because she always gets crazy dreams when she does. 

Her heart is racing and her breathing is out of control and she’s so tired it feels like she didn’t sleep for a single second. Her mind flashes through every moment from her dream at lightning speed, and _“Jesus fuck,”_ she thinks. It's all so realistic.

She tries to remember what she did yesterday but all her memories are jumbled up with her dream, which itself feels months long and has all blurred together. She hasn't had a nightmare anywhere near as intense as that in a long time. And it must be a nightmare, because the things that happened in her dream could never happen in real life, she reassures herself. She staunchly ignores the pit in her stomach that feels live and electric and magical and chalks it up to adrenaline. 

It takes her a few minutes to convince herself that it was nothing more than a dream—but it had all seemed so lifelike, on both levels. The characters that her mind had created and then the caricatures that the Hive had formed of them for the show. 

Ted, who was a model of the archetype of every creep she ever met, but who also had a heart somewhere in there, deep down, and with his not so secret passion for musical theater and his failed attempt to be a better person. Charlotte, who was struggling in vain with her dying marriage, who despite all the signs, still loved her husband anyways. Bill, who would give up anything and everything for his daughter, and who did. Hidgens, whose unlikely friendship with her had begun because she brought him groceries once, who turned out to be too caught up in the past, too worried about the future, and spent not enough time in the present. 

And Paul. God, she couldn't make up Paul. There's a million moments in the short span they knew each other that were outside the realm of possibility for her imagination. 

Paul, who was so entirely normal and unassuming, but who somehow still found the strength to smile and be a good friend during the goddamn end of the world. 

Paul, who she sat down with and talked about herself, something she hadn't done with anyone.

Paul, who saw her in _Brigadoon_ and hated musicals because of her, but who still smiled and told her that he didn't think of her as the villain in her story at all.

Paul, who held her hands and vehemently proclaimed that he would never be in a fucking musical, who awkwardly backed away from the kiss after she had coughed up blood in his face. 

Paul, who held her in his arms and sang so sweetly when he told her she had lost.

Paul, who held her down as she thrashed and cried and screamed and— _no_.

That was all a dream. Paul and Bill and Ted and everyone else are just a result of her late night coffee dreams and spending way too much time in Beanie’s. Her brain had just made them up, she tells herself. 

Shaking her head, Emma resolves to put the dream out of her mind and gets out of bed. Her entire world feels off kilter, but it's a school day and she has a shift at Beanie's after class. The show must go on.

* * *

Emma sits on the floor of her tiny apartment (her ragtag, broken couch is literally less comfortable than the ground), eating a bowl of cereal with no milk (she ran out last Friday and she keeps forgetting to buy more).

She has the morning news on in the background while she mindlessly scrolls through her phone. If she were to listen to the broadcast for just one second longer, she would hear the news about a meteor striking the old Starlight Theater. But she doesn't. She turns the television off, right before the news anchors cover the story.

She has her backpack slung across her shoulder. For a moment, she has a wild feeling of déjà vu to when she left her childhood home that last time. The weight of the backpack strap digging into her shoulder, the strange sense of finality in turning to look at the door behind her. Then, she slams the door closed behind her, shoves earbuds into her ears, and presses play. 

* * *

It's not until several minutes into her first lecture of the day, molecular biology, that Emma first begins to notice something is off. Professor Hidgens is going through the exact same lecture as he did last time. Maybe he just messed up his lesson plan or forgot he did this lecture already. Normally, Emma wouldn't care, but the exam was coming soon and she didn't want to waste an entire lecture on material they had already gone over.

Emma raises her hand, hoping to catch Professor Hidgens’ attention. 

He pauses the lecture and turns to her. "Yes?" she asks her expectantly. 

"Sorry to interrupt, but didn't we go over this exact lecture last class?"

He looks at her with confusion, as does several other of her classmates. 

"No," he says to her slowly, "if you check the syllabus you'll see that we are right on track for the semester."

No one else in the room seems to have any idea what she's talking about. Embarrassed, Emma mumbles out something about how she got confused and lowers her head.

Professor Hidgens gives her a concerned look and says in a softer voice “are you doing alright, Emma? You don't look so well today.” but resumes his lecture. She shakes her head. She must have had a later night than she thought. That stupid dream was really throwing her off today.

Whatever the case, Emma zones out. She starts doodling in her notebook. She’s never considered herself an artist in any way, but she’s been drawing throughout classes ever since grade school. The habit didn’t go away during her time as a vagabond, and she wasn’t about to stop now that she was in college. She found herself drawing sights she had seen when she travelled, the past in her mind after her dream.

* * *

Professor Hidgens wraps up his lecture, reminding everyone that they should be keeping up with the readings. Not that he thinks saying this will convince anyone to read who hasn't already been, but it's the gesture that counts. 

Emma snaps back to attention, having spaced out sometime near the beginning of class. She hadn’t realized the lecture had passed by so quickly. It was hard to focus today. She hastily shoves her notebook back into her backpack and gets up to join the rush of students leaving the lecture hall, but right before she reaches the door, she hears Hidgens say "excuse me, Emma? Do you think you can stay for just a few moments?" 

Emma groans. He probably wants to ask if she's alright. He's been a wonderful mentor to her these past few months, but today she's not in the mood. She's still frazzled from her nightmare and her bones vibrate with leftover tension and something else she can't quite identify with the static that still currently running through her head. 

She turns around and plops back into her seat, ready to get this over with so she can go home and take a short nap before her Beanie’s shift.

Professor Hidgens comes to sit down in the empty seat beside her. 

“Emma, are you sure you’re feeling alright today? You're normally very on top of the coursework.” His voice is filled with concern, and she can hear the unasked question of if she's been drinking again.

* * *

Hidgens had been the one to drag her out of the hell that was substance abuse, not that she’ll even admit that’s what it is in the beginning. One day, after she had shown up tipsy to his lecture, he had pulled her aside and sat her down. Talked to her about how she was failing his class. About how he wanted better from her. About how he believed in her. The same crap every well meaning adult in her life had ever given her. 

And then unexpectedly, about how he needed groceries. But that he was going to be tied up in his lab all afternoon, so it would really be a huge favor to him if she could go to the store and get everything on this list and that she would even get some extra credit for it. She could just bring the keys (she needed four of them and a key card to get in) to the next lecture. She doesn't know how the conversation pivoted from her grades to groceries, but she rather not think about her failing status so she agrees, and two hours later, she's standing on the doorstep of the (very strange) home of her biology professor.

Emma doesn't want to be rude and snoop through her professor's home, but who the hell has a gated home and four locks on their door in Hatchetfield? And plus, it isn't really snooping, she reasons with herself. It’s not like she’s touching anything. She's just taking her time looking around. 

In the living room, which she has to pass by on her way into the kitchen, she spies a framed picture on a table. Taking a closer look, she sees seven young men all standing together, in graduation gowns. It's a silly and chaotic photo, not something she would expect her serious professor to have in his home. They're all making faces for the camera. One of them is holding another in a fake headlock and giving him a noogie. One makes a smug face and proudly holds his diploma upside down. In the center of the photo, she sees a familiar face holding a ridiculous and over dramatic ballet pose for the camera. It's definitely her professor, years and years younger. She smiles at this. It's nice to see that her professor was once young and happy, surrounded by friends. 

She wanders into the kitchen and opens the pantry to put away food. What greets her is shelves chock full of canned goods, enough to last for years. She idly wonders what the professor is stocking up for as she shoves whatever she can fit into the already full pantry.

* * *

After the next lecture, she hands him back his numerous keys and he thanks her for the groceries. She doesn’t know how he does it, but he turns the conversation on her. 

Suddenly, they’re talking about her choice of major (no clue), post-college plans (no clue), and where she wants her life to go (not surprisingly, no clue). She almost opens her mouth to say she never expected to be alive for this long, but she bites her tongue at the last second. That’s not for anyone else to know, not even kindhearted biology professors who have a knack for getting her to talk more than she should.

* * *

Emma is two hours into her shift, working completely on autopilot. It’s all she can handle today, being as frazzled as she is. She doesn’t quite feel like she’s inhabiting her own body. It feels like a stranger is still at the reins, tugging her along. After her talk with Professor Hidgens that had lasted way too long, she hadn’t had enough time to go home before heading over to Beanie's. She had reluctantly trudged over to the Starbucks across the street (no way was she spending more time at Beanie's than she had to) and sat there until she absolutely had to leave for her shift. 

When she clocked in, Zoey and Nora made her review the stupid tip song and dance they had taught her yesterday and her eyes immediately glazed over for the rest of the morning, even moreso than they already were. Something, something, sing for customers. Be nice to the customers, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, she's got it. She is having a hard time concentrating today, as flashes from her bizarre dream keep getting mixed in with yesterday in her mind. 

She's in the back, hand grinding coffee beans mindlessly because the grinder broke last week and Nora _still_ hasn't gotten around to replacing it. _”They're a coffee shop, for fucks sake,”_ she thinks. Nora and Zoey are in the manager's office, doing who knows what. _“Certainly not their jobs, that's for sure."_ She loses track of both time and herself as she gives in to the repetitive motion.

_Ding!_

She's startled out of her daze by the door chime and she hears a customer walk in. She's about to yell out that she'll be right with them when a desperate and frightened scream meets her ears.

“Hello? Hello?! Please, God. I just want a black coffee!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever so out of it, you don't notice 1. you've lived this day before 2. your coworkers are singing zombie motherfuckers?
> 
> >>[inevitableapotheosis](https://inevitableapotheosis.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Leave a comment and I'll love you forever


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